Today’s review is the forth and latest release under the ‘Timorous Beastie’ label from Douglas Laing, the Timorous Beastie 18 Year Old that was released last May. We’ll review this today and next week we’ll check out both the 21 year old and the 40 year old that were released last year.

Timorous Beastie is Douglas Laing label for highlands blended malt. In this case, It’s a vatting of whiskies from Blair Athol, Dalmore,  Glengoyne and Glen Garioch. A quite large batch of 7258 bottles was produced with a bit of an uneven pricing where it’s noticeably cheaper in mainland Europe than in UK. As usual with Douglas Laing, it’s non chill-filtered and without colouring.

Timorous Beastie 18 Year Old (46.8%, £74.50/€67,90)

Nose: Malty, damp wood shows up at first but is waved away later on, honey, pie dough and frankly, it’s quite bready. White pepper, subdued creamy fruitiness and apples and it developed a mineral edge after a few minutes

Palate: Cookies dough, bready, oats, honey, white pepper, apples, minerals and eventually it’s getting nutty with cooked cinnamon and nutmeg.

Finish: Short medium length, soft breadness, barley, oak spices, and gentle pepper fizz.

Thoughts: A malt focused whisky. The spirit speaks loudly here with casks speaking seventh fiddle, resulting in a bit of an hardcore highlands whisky full of maltiness and subtle honey sweetness. A rock solid whisky.